Lunch with Michael Thompson of the NBA Bobcats.



Yesterday, I had lunch with the Director of Corporate Communications for the Charlotte Bobcats, Michael Thompson.  After giving me a tour of Time Warner Cable Arena, we sat down at Black Fin for lunch. He was kind enough to take some time out of a very busy day to speak to me, a stranger, about his journey into the public relations field.

The amazing thing about the conversation was how candid he was, and how much we shared in our love of basketball.  Remember in my post, "Sports Addiction", I spoke about how my love and loss of basketball sent me into a virtual depression?  The funny thing about Mr. Thompson is that his love propelled him into his career.  Eerily we both suffered knee injuries the summers before our junior years of high school that took us out of playing the game.

Our convo swirled like a figure eight play going down the court (if you've ever played b-ball, you know what that is...).  We talked about him being born in Chicago, but growing up in Hong Kong.  I told him about growing up in my hometown, where a couple of basketball stars were also born.  (Of course he mentioned them, when you love what you do, you have a desire to know everything about the subject matter! lol) He went to college for Sports Med but was horrible at math and science, so he changed his major to communications. 

We'd then venture into a discussion about the Bobcats' introduction to Charlotte in a very hostile environment.  If you grew up in Charlotte and surrounding area, you'd know we all suffered a serious heartbreak when the Hornets dumped us for New Orleans! (Still a little salty about that...). After graduating college Mr. Thompson sent out sixty-one resumes and got no replies.  Then he spent five years working for sports programs, volunteering, doing whatever he could to chase his dream of working in public relations for the NBA. AND HE DID IT FOR FREE!!! LOL  Can you imagine? He'd just pick up odd jobs here and there to pay the bills.

I learned some amazing things from Mr. Thompson yesterday.  Hopefully, I'll blog more about how supportive his wife was through his journey to achieve his dream.  According to Mr. Thompson, the Mrs. was the breadwinner for a long time, and suffered through several moves.  Even went through the ramifications of Hurricane Katrina (before joining the Bobcats, Mr. Thompson worked with the Hornets, which originally brought him to Charlotte in the 90s).


I'll also write some about the unique branding and marketing of the Bobcats and their relationship with the Jordan Brand.  You do know that the Jordan  Retro11s are coming out.  But did you know that the Bobcats' Team Store will have a special release of 100 pair? You had to have a platinum ticket to pre-order them.  And if you followed the Bobcats on Twitter or Facebook, you would have had a shot at 1 of 20 tickets given away. Don't fret, there will be a VERY limited amount of shoes available to the public, during the release event on Thursday December 23, 2010.  The event starts at 12:00.  Go here for more info!

Check out this video of these people in line for the New Retro 11s.

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